new report on granddaughter’s plastic bag ban club:

The club–6 children, 3 adults– met with Mayor Myrick on Monday, September 24th to talk about their proposal to ban plastic shopping bags in Ithaca. Karryn brought in a huge bag of bags–750 of them–the quantity that one Wegman’s store collects in one hour for recycling [does anyone know what this process is?].

Each child spoke about one aspect of their thinking. Kalle talked about why she started the club, due to her concern for the animals eating the plastic. Kaliani expanded on the reasons for doing so–the Texas size island of plastic that photo-disintegrates into small bits, looking like bits of food to many forms of animal life. Anamolina presented their proposal–to end the use of plastic shopping bags and charging for paper bags [as they do in Seattle] to encourage the use of cloth bags. And Noah and Flossie presented one of the cloth bags that the children made to the mayor.

The mayor was delighted and delightful, very supportive and respectful. He spoke about the need to get the county on board, and said he wanted to video the children to present to the town and county boards.